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In Preparation for Advent
The Advent season always seems to catch me off guard. It you are like me, then you prefer to celebrate each holiday in its own right. Next week, many will be gathering around festive tables laden with turkeys and stuffing, yam dishes and pies, cranberry crush and apple delights. You might be surrounded by friends, or family, or you might be celebrating Thanksgiving in quiet retreat. But the point is, Thanksgiving is next, and once we have cleared the turkey, then we can think about Christmas.
Except Advent, one of the earliest traditions in Christian practice, begins the Sunday right after our Thanksgiving holiday.
So, I have prepared an Advent Devotional that will take the reader through each of the four weeks of Advent, beginning the Sunday after Thanksgiving, with a special reading for Christmas day. I wrote it this way so this devotional could be read in any given year.
The first part of this devotional pairs Hannah’s Prayer with Zechariah’s Prophecy, and the names of the Son of God that come out of their prayers.
Hannah’s Prayer
Hannah was the mother of the prophet Samuel, who was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first prophet to anoint a king of Israel. It was Samuel who anointed King David, recognizing in the young shepherd boy that God does not judge by what the world sees, or by the world’s standards, but rather God looks in the heart. The heart and soul are what matter to God for eternity.
Zechariah’s Prophecy
Zechariah was the father of John the Baptist, who was the last of the Hebrew Prophets, and the Hebrew prophet who heralded and baptized Messiah Jesus, the King of all kings and Lord of all lords. John the Baptist was able to identify the Messiah in the unassuming carpenter and stonemason by God’s direct revelation in the form of a dove resting above Jesus’s head. Israel was looking for a royal king but God intended to save the world for eternity.
The second part of this devotional pairs Mary’s Magnificat with Jesus’s Beatitudes, and the names of God the Son which arise.
Mary’s Magnificat
Mary was the birth mother of Jesus, the first to experience the extraordinary reality of God’s very life growing within her. As any mother might do, Mary surely sang lullabies to her baby, and taught Him the scriptures and stories of His people as He grew. It was Mary who heard her Son’s first word, and rejoiced over His first step. It is no wonder she “pondered these things in her heart.”
Jesus’s Beatitudes
As His ministry grew, Jesus’s teaching became famous, and His Beatitudes continue to engage us thousands of years later with the wonder of the Lord’s wisdom.
As you and I meditate on these words, let us think about the names all heaven and earth gave to this tiny, vulnerable baby Who is God the Son. From eternity into our world and then returned to the glory from whence He came, Jesus now opens the way for you and me to be with him in glory forever.
Lamp photographs from the Getty Museum (Menorah lamp) and the Metropolitan Museum (Chi-rho lamp), public domain.
